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The Limits of Social Norms Chicago-Kent Law Review Volume 74 Issue 4 Symposium on Law, Psychology, and Article 6 the Emotions October 1999 The Limits of Social Norms Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, The Limits of Social Norms, 74 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 1537 (2000). Available at: https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/vol74/iss4/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarly Commons @ IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Chicago-Kent Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarly Commons @ IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. THE LIMITS OF SOCIAL NORMS JEFFREY J. RACHLINSKI* No society can function if it cannot constrain the self-serving behavior of its members. Societies that cannot control socially destructive behavior collapse into dysfunction; they become dangerously crime-ridden, as in some of America's inner cities, or completely anarchic, as in parts of the Balkans and central Africa.' Clear rules enforced by legal sanctions deter a great deal of socially destructive conduct, but social norms enforced by informal sanctions might create even more powerful constraints. 2 If so, then gaining control over dysfunctional societies might depend more upon using or manipulating social norms than upon enforcing the law. Decades of research conducted by social psychologists on social norms, however, suggests three important obstacles to the use of social norms: First, antisocial norms, once established, are hard to dislodge; second, even if people adhere to positive social norms, determining when they are triggered is difficult; third, subtle aspects of situations can induce antisocial conduct, seemingly even against social norms. Most legal scholarship addressing the control of antisocial behavior addresses formal sanctions rather than social norms.3 This is not surprising; formal sanctions are more familiar to lawyers and punishing undesirable antisocial conduct is the most straightforward means of maintaining social order. Formal sanctions almost certainly provide a critical degree of control over antisocial conduct, but they are costly, both to society and to the individual being punished. 4 Incarceration, in particular, can produce unintended costs to * Professor of Law, Cornell Law School. Ph.D., Psychology, Stanford University, 1994; J.D., Stanford University, 1993; B.A., The Johns Hopkins University, 1988; M.A., Psychology, The Johns Hopkins University, 1988. I thank Chris Guthrie and Emily Sherwin for their helpful comments on this paper. 1. See Tracey L. Meares & Dan M. Kahan, Law and (Norms of) Order in the Inner City, 32 L. & Soc'Y. REv. 805, 812-13 (1998). 2. See generally Dan M. Kahan, Social Meaning and the Economic Analysis of Crime, 27 J. LEGAL STUD. 609 (1998). 3. See Robert C. Ellickson, Law and Economics Discovers Social Norms, 27 J. LEGAL STUD. 537, 542-43 (1998). 4. See John J. Donohue III & Peter Siegelman, Allocating Resources Among Prisonsand Social Programs in the Battle Against Crime, 27 J. LEGAL STUD. 1,3-6 (1998). CHICAGO-KENT LAW REVIEW [Vol. 74:1537 individuals, especially in communities in which the rate of incarceration is high.5 Partly in response to the staggering costs of incarceration, some legal scholars argue that informal social norms provide a better means of controlling antisocial conduct. 6 This observation builds upon a growing body of legal scholarship concerning social norms.7 This new "law and social norms" scholarship adopts a more subtle approach to social behavior than identifying situations that should trigger formal rewards and sanctions. It accounts for the prominence of group membership and social approval as sources of rewards and punishments. 8 This new field has developed several positive and normative implications of social norms. On the positive side, the scholarship asserts that groups develop and enforce norms of conduct apart from formal legal sanctions.9 Perhaps more significantly, this scholarship might hold valuable normative lessons for policymakers interested in reducing crime as an alternative to incarceration. The law and social norms scholarship identifies two ways in which reformers can take advantage of the power of social norms. First, changes in law can influence social norms. For example, passing a law against smoking in public places had a dramatic effect on smokers, not because of the formal penalty for public smoking (which is hardly ever imposed) but because it empowered nonsmokers to levy social sanctions on smokers.1 Changes in law might also inspire changes in preferences. 1 Scholars refer to this as the "expressive" 5. See Meares & Kahan, supra note 1, at 813. 6. See generally Dan M. Kahan, Social Influence, Social Meaning, and Deterrence, 83 VA. L. REV. 349 (1997); Meares & Kahan, supra note 1, at 812. 7. See, e.g., Lawrence Lessig, The Regulation of Social Meaning, 62 U. CHI. L. REV. 943 (1995); Richard H. McAdams, The Origin,Development, and Regulation of Norms, 96 MICH. L. REV. 338 (1997); Richard A. Posner, Social Norms and the Law: An Economic Approach, 87 AM. ECON. REV. 365 (1997); Eric A. Posner, The Regulation of Groups: The Influence of Legal and Non-Legal Sanctions on Collective Action, 63 U. CHI. L. REV. 133 (1996); Cass R. Sunstein, Social Norms and Social Roles, 96 COLUM. L. REV. 903 (1996). Owing to the number of scholars at the University of Chicago doing this work, some have referred to it as the "New Chicago School." See, e.g., Lawrence Lessig, The New Chicago School, 27 J. LEGAL STUD. 661 (1998). 8. See McAdams, supra note 7, at 341-42. 9. See generally ROBERT C. ELLICKSON, ORDER WiTHouT LAW: How NEIGHBORS SETrLE DISPuTEs (1991); Lisa Bernstein, Opting Out of the Legal System: Extralegal ContractualRelations in the Diamond Industry, 21 J. LEGAL STUD. 115 (1992); Eric A. Posner, supra note 7, at 137-44. 10. See Robert Cooter, Expressive Law and Economics, 27 J. LEGAL STUD. 585, 594-95 (1998). 11. See Cass R. Sunstein, Endogenous Preferences, EnvironmentalLaw, 22 J. LEGAL STUD. 217, 230-34 (1993). 2000] THE LIMITS OF SOCIAL NORMS function of law.12 Second, subtle and inexpensive changes in a social setting can signal different social norms. For example, fixing broken windows, cleaning up trash, erasing graffiti, and planting flowers in a neighborhood can have a dramatic effect on crime rates because tidiness can "signal" a community's intolerance for lawbreaking. 3 The interaction between law and social norms arguably identifies ways to reduce crime that are less expensive and more humane than traditional approaches. A change in law that does not need to be enforced, or is only minimally enforced, is not costly to society or to the individuals who are deterred from breaking the law by a new social taboo. Likewise, cleaning neighborhoods is much more humane than identifying and sentencing lawbreakers to lengthy periods of incarceration. Historically, those who have argued against incarceration have advocated social programs designed to fight poverty as a substitute crime control measure. 14 Such programs are expensive, and do not always succeed, or generate other unwanted consequences. The law and social norms scholarship suggests novel alternatives to the choice between expensive social programs and incarceration. Manipulating social norms to reduce antisocial conduct will only be a successful strategy if the underlying theories describing how social norms affect behavior are both accurate and reasonably complete. Although the law and social norms scholarship relies largely on observational and anecdotal support, it presents a good case that social norms influence behavior in ways that policymakers can use. The diamond industry is probably governed by the informal norms Professor Bernstein identifies, 5 sprucing up a community probably reduces crime as Professor Kahan argues,'16 and changes in the law probably affects people's perception of conduct such as dueling and wearing hockey helmets. 7 If the theories explaining these phenomena are incomplete, however, then the law and social norms scholarship is merely a post hoc effort to accommodate some anomalous phenomena. 8 The law and social norms theories might 12. See Cooter, supra note 10, at 595. See generally Cass R. Sunstein, On the Expressive Function of Law, 144 U. PA. L. REV. 2021 (1996). 13. See Kahan, supra note 6, at 352-61. 14. See, e.g., Donohue & Siegelman, supra note 4. 15. See Bernstein, supra note 9. 16. See Kahan, supra note 6, at 352-61. 17. See Lessig, supra note 7, at 968-71. 18. See Sunstein, supra note 7, at 945. CHICAGO-KENT LAW REVIEW [Vol. 74:1537 not generalize to new situations, making them useless to policy- makers. Law and social norms theory so far has relied upon rational choice theory and game theory for its intellectual foundation,19 but sociologists and social psychologists have a long history of studying social norms. Sociology even includes a school of thought known as "symbolic interactionism," which is stunningly similar to the signaling theories in the new legal scholarship on social norms.20 For their part, social psychologists have been studying social norms and social influence since the 1930s.21 Decades of social psychological research on social norms merits more than just a tip-of-the-hat from law and social norms scholars. 22 As early as 1936, a prominent social psychologist, Muzafir Sherif, published a monograph describing empirical research on the origins and implications of social norms.23 One of the founders of modern social psychology, Kurt Lewin, demonstrated how to manipulate social settings to alter social norms during World War II as part of an effort to reduce demand for scarce products needed for the war effort.2 4 Social psychologists conducted decades of research on social norms and social influence that followed these early leaders, which could enrich the law and social norms scholar's anecdotal style with rigorous empiricism.
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